SAN DIEGO, Calif. (August 4, 2010) – Two teams from the South, TNT Texas and Southern Smashers, will battle for the national championship at the 2010 World TeamTennis Junior Nationals at the George E. Barnes Family Tennis Center on Thursday morning. The WTT Junior Nationals, which is hosted by WTT co-founder Billie Jean King, is an invitational national junior event featuring 16 coed teams from throughout the U.S. The teams use the World TeamTennis format during their three days of non-elimination draw competition.

In a battle of undefeated teams, TNT Texas dominated OC Lightning 46-26 to advance to the Championship Finals. TNT Texas, representing the USTA Texas section, only dropped one set in their win over the squad from the Orange County Tennis Association. Team members of TNT Texas are Robin Chou, Greg Haugen, Eliot Blatt, and Casey Sutton, all of Austin, Texas; Farris Cunningham of Houston, Texas; and Emily Olivier of Spring, Texas. Bobby Reeves of Richland Hills, Texas, is the coach.

Southern Smashers, with players from Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, survived a tough 44-32 showdown with San Diego Riptide, the defending champions from Youth Tennis San Diego. Trailing by two games after four sets, the Southern girls turned the match around in women’s singles with Clare Mendell of Canton, Ga., posting a 6-2 win while teammate Abigail Owens of Duluth, Ga., won her set 6-1. Southern, representing the USTA Southern section, closed out with match by winning both mixed doubles matches. Other members of Southern Smashers are Chase Baker of Suwannee, Ga.; Parker Chang of Winston Salem, N.C.; Roberto Hennis of Raleigh, N.C.; and Ashley Kitchen of Hilton Head Island, S.C. Susannah Cook of Chattanooga, Tenn., is the team coach.

San Diego Riptide will take on OC Lightning in the third place match on Thursday morning. Two other San Diego area teams will also be in action on Thursday morning. The San Diego Attackers will play for 9th place while the Waves from San Diego will look for their first win in the match for 15th place. Action continues with the final round on Thursday at 9 a.m. at the Barnes Tennis Center. All matches are open to the public.

Team members, ages 14-18, are selected based on their sectional and national rankings, but are not eligible if they attain a ranking of 1-150 on the USTA Seed Selection List as of May 2010.

The tournament follows the WTT non-elimination draw format with the 16 teams divided into four groups. Each team is comprised of three boys, three girls and a coach. Team matches consist of eight events; with two sets each of boys’ singles, girls’ singles, one set of boys’ and girls’ doubles, and two sets of mixed doubles. The first team to reach six games wins each set. A nine-point tiebreaker is played if a set reaches five all. One point is awarded for each game won. If necessary, Overtime and a Supertiebreaker are played to determine the outright winner of the match.